BB likely to get back more $29m of heist money soon

A file photo shows the Bangladesh Bank headquarters at Motijheel in Dhaka.

Bangladesh Bank is expected to get back around US$29 million heisted reserve from the Philippines soon since the Philippines court has already delivered a verdict in favour of the central bank.‘Several cases are going on in different Philippines courts for recovering the whole money . . . The defendant has filed an appeal in the higher court against the verdict,’ BB’s deputy governor Abu Hena Mohd Razee Hassan said on Friday.Hackers stole a total $101 million from Bangladesh’s account at the New York Fed in February 2016. Of the amount, $81 million was transferred to four accounts at RCBC in Manila and another $20 million to a bank in Sri Lanka.But the transfer of $20 million to Sri Lanka failed because of a spelling error by the hackers. Later, BB was able to retrieve about $15 million from the Philippines.Rest of the $66 million, Razee Hassan said, around $51 million heisted money has already been identified.‘Another court will also give its verdict on the rest on the indentified money and I hope that the verdict will also come in favour of the central bank,’ he added.He said some of the heisted money is yet to be unidentified and BB is providing all sorts of efforts to find out the unidentified money soon.The deputy governor said BB is also taking all sorts of preparations to file a lawsuit within the scheduled time against the Filipino Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation to recover the whole heisted money from the central bank’s account with Federal Reserve Bank of New York.Earlier, a member of BB’s legal team Ajmalul Hossain QC said they are taking preparations to file a case as early as possible.He said a case is likely to be filed in the US court and BB may complete all preparations, including consultation with lawyers, within two or three months.Responding to a question, the senior lawyer said the Philippines court recently took witness from BB and Criminal Investigation Department officials.